United States or Bosnia and Herzegovina ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Countess Brenda's daughter, Beatrice Brenda, in spite of her pea-hen air, was always endeavouring to stir up the Neapolitan and to start a conversation with him; but Carminatti in his light-hearted way would reply with a jest or a fatuous remark and betake himself again to the Marchesa Sciacca, who would make her disturbing children hush because they often prevented her from catching what the Neapolitan was saying.
Mrs. Pea-Hen seemed to be real proud because she had so many babies, and after the last one was hatched she called all of them out for a walk. "They came from the nest with considerable noise, such as all youngsters make, and no sooner did she hear the first peep than Mrs. Pea-Hen turned around like a flash, looking at first one and then another until she had seen the whole brood.
When she begins to sit on her empty nest, it is his business to bring back a part of her eggs and place them under her, which leads to a pitched battle. The pea-hen is a different creature: she keeps her nest a secret even from the peacock, never leaving it save on the wing, and approaching it with the greatest circumambulation. Nobody but the boy knows where it is.
Jill afterwards tried to explain the outcome of this, her first step in the meadows of meditation, which she took without help and without intention, and in which she has become so versed, to the mystification of those about her, who look upon woman as a bearer of children, a plaything for sunny hours, useful in time of rain, endowed with the brain of a pea-hen, and as much soul as the priests see fit to mete out to her.
"Robertson's done up," said he to himself; "thae young lads are aye sae thoughtless. What deevil could he hae to say to Jeanie Deans, or to ony woman on earth, that he suld gang awa and get his neck raxed for her? And this mad quean, after cracking like a pen-gun, and skirling like a pea-hen for the haill night, behoves just to hae hadden her tongue when her clavers might have dune some gude!
Hardly any one was so bold. Tito quoted Horace and dispersed his slice in small particles over his plate; Bernardo Rucellai made a learned observation about the ancient price of peacocks' eggs, but did not pretend to eat his slice; and Niccolo Ridolfi held a mouthful on his fork while he told a favourite story of Luigi Pulci's, about a man of Siena, who, wanting to give a splendid entertainment at moderate expense, bought a wild goose, cut off its beak and webbed feet, and boiled it in its feathers, to pass for a pea-hen.
The king answers, "I was absorbed in the maid of my vision." The Vidushaka, however, treats the whole as a dream, and reproaches the king for his fickleness, as he had just before fallen in love with Kuvalayamala, the princess of Kuntala, and recommends him to be content with the queen, as "a partridge in the hand is better than a pea-hen in the forest."
Pea-Hen tried to act as if she didn't hear what Mamma Speckle said; but she couldn't help it, for you know how loud the speckled hen talks. She never paid any attention to the babies, though, and the other fowls took care of them as best they could with babies of their own."
'My dear sir, answered the Pea-hen, with ill-concealed irony, 'I have known them remain so for years! So time passed on, and every day, when they visited the garden, the self-complacent Pea-hen became more and more sarcastic, the Jackal more and more savage. At last the plum-trees blossomed and bore fruit, and the Pea-hen sat down to a perfect feast of ripe juicy plums.
Then she changed herself back into a pea-hen, and the whole nine flew away. As soon as the sun rose the prince entered the palace, and held out the apple to his father, who was rejoiced to see it, and praised his youngest son heartily for his cleverness. That evening the prince returned to the apple tree, and everything passed as before, and so it happened for several nights.
Word Of The Day